The Most Cursed Name
by agelade
Summary: Season Four AU: Dean is dead set against this whole psychic exorcizing crap, no matter what Sam has to say about it. And he's never ever ever going to change his mind. Not ever. Unless... Nope. Never. Includes themes of possession, demon blood. Part One in a loose series exploring Sam and the demon blood. Written for the spnaufestival, on tumblr and LJ; art by alethiometry.
1. Chapter 1

**The Most Cursed Name**

_It happened that day, a nameless day, an unmemorable one. He only knows looking back, that's when it must have happened._

"I don't know, this is where she was last seen," Sam says. Before them is the dilapidated ruin of a large farmhouse, two stories, broken windows, tatters of curtains flailing out of the windows occasionally looking enough like white hair or desperate arms to be unsettling.

Dean looks up with a frown. "If you say so. She only died two years ago, though. No way is a house coming down like this in two years."

Sam shrugs. "I know. I'm with ya, I just." He shrugs. "The kid said it was an old house, and this is her address. Maybe it looked like this when she lived in it?"

Dean makes a face that makes Sam laugh. He's so easily grossed out by dirt, considering what they do every day, what they wade into, what they've had to clean out of their clothes.

Sam chuckles again, starts forward. "Come on, man."

Dean whistles when they get into the living room. It's taken some effort; the front door's swollen with rain wet, Sam's shoulder's still aching from beating it down.

"Well, we've stayed in worse motels," Dean laughs, elbows Sam. It's hollow, that laugh. After Hell, it's hollow but he's trying, Dean's trying. That's enough. "Remember that one dive?" he says, and laughs again to himself.

"You'll have to be a little more specific," Sam says, little grin, but he's back to business frowning at the state of the place. The foyer is spilled over in moth-eaten coats, scarves, boots - remnants of a bygone winter, left where the owners had dropped them and never returned. Beyond, the living room is similarly left untouched, left in the midst of something, like the people just up and left in the middle of whatever they were doing. "Something isn't right about this," he says, stepping into the foyer.

Dean rolls his eyes and pulls out the EMF detector, coming up behind Sam. "No way, everything's normal about the house that looks like it was abandoned in the 1800s despite having been lived in just two years ago. Nothin' fishy about that at all."

"Shh. Did you hear that?"

Sam can feel Dean's eyes sweep him, calculating, and he's proved right when Dean says, "Jumpy much?"

"I heard something upstairs," Sam insists, and Dean's little grunt means he thinks Sam is jumping at shadows, Sam is keyed up, Sam is going back on his promise to stop his psychic crap, no matter how it helps them, no matter how it saved Sam's life when Samhain was about to kill him. Dean would rather Sam was dead right now than accept Sam being anything other than run of the mill human.

But he's quit that, if only Dean would believe him. He's quit that, and if anything _that's _what's making him jumpy. It seems like every other case or seal has a bunch of demon activity around it, Lilith's grunts trying to break them, or demons who seem completely unrelated to anything just showing up because apparently Winchesters are too good to pass up messing with.

And now that he's stopped practicing, stopped _drinking_ \- which Dean doesn't know about and never _has_ to know about - Sam is back to rattling off an exorcism, or, more often, stabbing the thing with the knife, killing the poor fuck trapped inside his own body.

So yeah, he's jumpy. But he _did_ hear a sound, dammit.

"I'm gonna check out the upstairs."

"I didn't hear anything," Dean says. But Sam's already moving up the stairs, and he hears Dean mutter "Fine." Then a bit louder, "I'll check out the rest of this floor. Yell if you find anything."

"Will do."

* * *

The stairs creak under his feet; he tries to keep to either side of each step to minimize the sound. At the top, the old farmhouse opens up into the second floor, wallpaper peeling down the walls, water damage. Sam pokes his head into the first room he sees and disturbs a nest of black birds that shriek at him.

Could have been the sound he heard. They do sound a bit like wailing on the wind.

The window's broken, probably how they got in. Curtains flail out of the broken pane. A bed in the corner sags on springless springs. Bedspread moth-eaten, mirror on the low dresser broken.

He nudges the closet door open. Nothing.

He's close to believing the birds made the sound that brought him up here, and then a door slams down the hall.

There's a knife in his hand. All the evidence points to either a witch or a siren, but Sam's still worried; they haven't seen a demon in a week. The other shoe's gonna drop. Their luck's gonna run out. Or maybe the storm is gathering. Whatever it is, something about the case has bothered him from the start, and he's nervous.

A second door, empty room.

A third door, empty.

Bathroom, empty and dark with no windows. Sam clicks the light on just to check, but there's no power. He moves on.

The last room in the upstairs, the door is shut. _The slammed door._ He's twitchy, he knows it, he's weaker than he wants to be, he's got to remember what he did when Dean was gone, when Dean was down in a pit. Back when taking on three demons felt like going to church, felt like deserved suicide and holy faith all at once. Since Dean's gotten back, he's felt none of that.

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he isn't supposed to feel holy, and maybe he isn't supposed to feel like he could be saved by flinging himself into destruction. Maybe he's supposed to exist in this subspace, this place where he is neutral and inert.

But he can't be inert. He has to act on _something_. He breathes a moment at the door, knife in hand, and then pushes it open.

A blinding light greets him. At first he thinks it's one of the angel dicks and he considers that maybe suicide is on the table after all, death by angel, but the glow fades and she stands there, a figure in dirty white, skin and hair white, with dark eyes. Their two-years-dead vic. Just having finished a spell. A spell to...

What?

Sam shifts into a defensive stance-

Or tries to - she turns to him and flings out a hand and he's frozen where he is.

"You're not a ghost," he says, stalling. Dean'll come up to check on him soon, she might not know there's another person in the house, he'll preserve Dean's element of surprise as long as he can.

She smiles at him, just a little. A little upturn of her mouth, and she pulls him toward her with a gesture. Against his will, Sam's feet slide on the hardwood floor.

Shit. Shit. He can't move, he can't move and he can't stop himself from sliding toward her, soles of his shoes scraping through the dust and dirt on the floor. Sam opens his mouth.

"_Dea-!"_

And then there's nothing, no sound. At this rate, he feels lucky she's letting him keep breathing.

She smiles at him. "Dean's busy right now."

On cue, Sam hears crashing from the first floor, Dean's round cursing.

_Shit_.

Sam stares at her. This is the end, this is how it ends for him. He flexes his grip on the blade in his hand, but he can't raise his arm. The only thing he can do is drop the knife.

He stares at her, her white hair, her white face, her dark eyes. He remembers her photo, tanned skin, dark shining hair, glittering laughing eyes. Alive once. Loving once.

He drops the knife.

Carolyn Reed drops her hand; Sam stops sliding toward her. She's let him go, he falls to his knees next to the knife on the floor. He raises his arm, flexes his hand in front of his face.

"What happened to you?" he asks, breathless.

"I became something," she says.

"We can help you-"

"I already have help."

Another crash from downstairs, Dean yelling _dammit_. He's probably wondering where the hell Sam is that Sam isn't rushing to help him. He probably hasn't considered that Sam has found a bad guy of his own to deal with.

Sam sags, his hands drop to the floor. He's weary, his shoulders droop. The knife is an inch from his fingertips. "Who's down there?"

"A friend. Someone... immune."

"Immune to what? What happened to you? We can help fix it."

"There's no fix," she says. "There's only me, only this."

Dean yells again, a yelp really, and Sam doesn't have a choice in this anymore. In a blink he's got the knife again, and he lunges for her. The resistance of the blade through fabric, but not skin, not bone, not enough-

He feels the impact before he registers what's happened. He flails out an arm too late to stop from crashing into the wall, and he lies in a heap with blood running down his face.

But he's up again and running for her. She throws a hand out and he keeps coming. The surprise on her face means she meant to freeze him again, and in the back of his mind, working a million processes a second, he realizes the front of her dress is slashed through, and he can see the contents of a pouch under the fabric torn asunder - a witch then, a witch with an aging problem, a spell gone awry, maybe?

But there's no time for that puzzle anymore, Dean is yelling downstairs and Sam's still flying through the air at her. He lands. They roll. Under his hands, she's frail and thin, and she isn't a match for him physically. Which is why she flings him aside a moment later, he bets. Lights flash before his eyes when he collides with an old low dresser. Breathing hurts now, probably a cracked rib. Dean's still yelling, now it's his name, an impatient, desperate _"Sam!"_

"Dean!"

A cracked rib is nothing. He's broken more than that and gone on. He advances again and she is watching the knife as she clutches at the tattered remains of the spellbag around her neck. That's it; she's afraid of the knife. She won't let him get close again. So he won't get close.

He charges her, blade held high, and she shrieks and throws him across the room again. This time, he doesn't get back up immediately. Dean's calling for him but he resists, he collects himself, he's on his hands and knees, coughing. He doesn't have to feign injury, but he does have to feign weakness. So he does, and he watches her stand up straight in his periphery, he watches her lift her head in triumph, he watches her guard come down as she stares at her beaten foe.

He watches her eyes open wide a moment later, at the hilt of the knife sticking grotesquely out of her chest.

She falls in slow motion; color seems to fade back into the room as the silence spreads, age seeps away, dust seems lighter, the hardwood floor shines like it was laid down two years ago, not two hundred. The windows are still broken, but the glass on the floor is clean and sparkles. The curtains flail out of the window, but whole and white like they've been freshly laundered.

And she is ghost white; what little life was in her goes out like a light when she hits the ground.

* * *

The silence lasts a heartbeat, feels longer, Sam stares at her as he catches his breath.

Time resumes.

A cry from downstairs, then silence.

Sam races down the stairs, honey brown where they had been grey and rough. They do not creak.

"Dean?"

No answer. Sam races through the house as quietly as he can, because something might still be here. Around him, things brighten as time rushes back into them, but whatever was broken is still broken. Whatever lies still, remains still. Whatever is dead, dead.

"Dean!"

"Sam! Back here!"

Relief burns through him like a poison, Sam runs through the broken ruins of the abandoned house, a spotless couch bowed in the middle, a table leaning over on three of four legs; he vaults these things and ignores the ache in his side where he's sure he's cracked a rib, because the reedy way Dean is yelling for him, how he hasn't come to meet him halfway, how he hasn't come-

So Sam runs and ignores the way his head is heavy and how his arm is bleeding, he runs and when he sees Dean slumped in the back of the kitchen near the back door, he shoves the dusty table out of the way and slides to his knees, hands out for Dean.

"Look at me, buddy," he mutters, and Dean does, but he blinks long, and he puts a hand to his side and he's _bleeding_. "It's okay," he says, pulling Dean to him. "It's okay."

* * *

He's got them both to the hotel room, and Dean seems okay now. He's sitting up and talking as Sam does some first aid.

"Stop moving," he instructs, small careful stitches lining up Dean's side. He'd been bleeding, lots of blood, Sam thought, but he seems okay now. He's lucid, not light-headed, he hasn't lost as much blood as Sam had feared. None of this is as bad as he had feared. "Start from the beginning."

"I'm tellin' ya, Sammy," Dean says, "Whatever it was, it vanished, just like that." He holds a towel full of ice to his elbow.

"And then you passed out."

"Yeah, and then I passed out. You got somethin' to say about it?"

Sam shakes his head and tugs on a stitch.

"Where were you, anyway?"

"Busy." Sam shifts; his ribs have been complaining since they got into the room, he's managing to get these stitches done by splitting the difference between the two Deans he sees. "Come on. Hitch your shirt up a little more-"

And he's off his game, because Dean immediately says, "You know what, I got this. It's just a graze." And he looks at Sam with that look, like _you're lyin' again_, but it seems like he knows what Sam's keeping to himself this time, because he pats Sam _innocently_ at his injured side to shoo him away and Sam winces and Dean just rolls his eyes.

Sam sighs, ties off the stitches. He was almost done anyway. And he leaves Dean to do the clean up, pour the alcohol, over the wound, down his throat, whatever, and Sam sags onto the other bed.

"So that's it? Think it's done?"

Dean looks at him. "I think you got her, yeah. A witch you said?"

"Yeah, I think so. She had a thing that looked like it could have been a hex bag around her neck. I sliced it open and she lost some of her powers-"

"What kinda powers?"

"I didn't take notes, Dean-"

"What, could she turn invisible? Mind control? What?"

Sam shrugs. "She could like-" He holds his hand out in front of him, mimicking her. "Stop you in place, stop you from moving, pull you toward her-"

He glances at Dean and the rest of his sentence dies on his lips. Dean's gaze is riveted to his hand, outstretched, like, like-

He drops his hand suddenly, looks at the carpet. Shrugs. "Just stuff she could do. I sliced it open with a lucky swing and she couldn't do that anymore."

"Oh yeah?" Dean watches him, eyes dark. "So explain that." He tosses the towel of ice to Sam; Sam who reaches for it and misses because he's reached for the wrong one of the two he sees, Sam who hisses in pain as his cracked ribs explode in agony.

"Not cool," Sam grumbles, carefully retrieves the towel and heads to the bathroom. No more ice for asshole Dean.

He's dumping the ice into the sink when Dean's voice, just a foot away at the bathroom door, makes him jump. He blows out the startle, turns to Dean with a frown. "What."

"I said, you didn't explain."

"Explain what? She threw me around a little. Nothing exciting-"

"You said she threw you around. Sounds a little demony to me."

"She was a _witch_, Dean." Sam sighs, put-upon. He isn't going to be shy about being frustrated by this. He's told Dean he's done, and he is. "She had a hex bag and everything. Witches can have flingy powers."

Dean watches him, face dark. Marking Sam's movement through the room, the hang of desperation and anger dragging whatever thankfulness Dean might have felt for Sam sewing him back together down into the deep, down into the pit of his distrust of Sam.

"They _can_," Sam tries again.

"Sure then can, Sammy," Dean says, and he sits in the chair at the table and he watches Sam the rest of the night, and Sam cleans up his own blood, sews his own wounds, gets his own ice for his ribs, and closes his eyes so the room will stop spinning.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Sam wakes up to the door slamming. Dean's up and dressed before Sam, for once. He's gone out for breakfast already, maybe a peace offering for being a dick about Sam's ribs. Or maybe a thank you for killing the bad guy. Or maybe he was just hungry.

"He rises," Dean crows. "Up and at 'em, kiddo. We got Seals to protect and crap."

Sam rubs his eyes. He's slept in. A lot. The sun is out. Dean's sweating.

"Dude, you need a shower."

"This is the stink of the righteous, my brother. I return with fresh kills for the family unit." He tosses a wrapped breakfast sandwich of some sort onto the table.

"Seriously, you're gross."

"The car's an oven. Not my fault."

Sam raises a brow. "You're wearing like three layers and it's 80 degrees out there, idiot."

Dean's smile turns false. One hand goes to his forearm, tugs the long sleeve down to his wrist. "Yeah, well..."

Sam stares, expectant.

"I just uh. Don't want." Dean kinda gives up, looks pissed.

"Is this about Hell?" Sam asks, serious and quiet.

"Just shut the hell up about it, okay?"

"Okay." Whatever Dean needs. But Sam thinks he gets it. Dean needs to feel protected, feel ownership of himself. Sam gets it and feels like an asshole for not noticing before that Dean must have been wearing long sleeves since Hell. Feels like an asshole and makes sure to get up first the next morning to get breakfast.

* * *

It's two weeks later, it's just after nightfall, and they are pushing forward against strong winds toward the center of a storm.

Literally.

At the center is a symbol, long-buried under the oldest church in Applecreek, Michigan, exposed by the hard work of a construction company recently under new management. Castiel says it's the "Phoenician Crest," and it's a Seal.

Of course it is.

"We're not making headway!" he calls to Dean. They're barely able to keep on their feet against the wind. Making forward progress is way out of scope. "We gotta stop the storm!"

"And how do you propose we do that!" Dean calls.

Sam frowns, braces himself with a boot dug deep into the dirt; it collects behind the line of his sole as the wind batters him back and back, and he shields his face and looks around for inspiration.

In the near distance, he sees a vague green light coming from just behind the old parson's house. Some kind of spell work, the light of which was invisible in the orange sunset.

"There," he says, and starts toward it. "You keep trying." He gestures at the creatures - demons, probably - advancing from the other side of the storm. "You gotta get there first, Dean!"

Dean's face is unreadable for a moment - probably deciding whether to trust Sam to handle this on his own - but then he nods, and puts his back into fighting the wind.

Sam heads toward the parson's house, a small single-story house they briefly searched through but didn't search _behind_ in their haste. The wind is at his back now, but it's almost more hazardous this way, threatening to push him forward faster than he can keep his feet under him, but he makes it finally, he bursts onto the scene just at the edge of the windstorms's radius to find three people standing around a bonfire of green light and static electricity. They stare at him, he stares at them, and then they come, all at once they come.

He fights them hand to hand, he fought more than this when Dean was in the Pit, fought them without Ruby's help, fought them while drunk, fought them fueled on pain alone, then pain and vengeance, then pain and vengeance and a desperate need to see Dean again no matter the circumstances. And then with blood.

That is all gone now. He has Dean, he will never have vengeance, he has learned to live with pain. None of it is fuel now. Now there is no blood.

Still, he can do it. In the place of pain and vengeance and Dean is something simpler, purer, something that feels like home: save the world.

He wishes he could do it without killing these three humans. His blade sinks into the chest of a girl in a torn pink blouse with sorority letters on it. The other two are on him then, and he hits the ground hard. The knife skitters from his hand across the stubbly grass, he's down to hand to hand in this fight against creatures stronger and older by far, with just that _simpler, purer_ fuel, and he gets the mid-60's businessman in the face with his elbow and he throws his arm out to find the blade but he can't, it's too far, and the other woman is on him and she _bites_ him, right in the neck and he grunts and he curses and then the exorcism pours out of his mouth.

If he can't kill them, and he can't fight them, he can talk. He can always talk.

When they're gone, he's bleeding from the neck, from a gash on his face, and there's a stabbing pain when he takes a breath, but he's alone with two unconscious people and one dead person and an altar it takes him about fifteen seconds to dismantle.

When he finds Dean - or rather when Dean finds him, passed out on the ground - he looks worried and pissed.

"What happened?" Sam says.

Dean pulls him up by the jacket front and he says, "You tell me."

Sam shakes his head to clear it, blinks a little, pain is everywhere. He puts a hand up to his neck and it comes away bloody. That explains the light-headedness, he looks up at Dean for a hand, for some assistance, it has to be obvious he's not quite up to standing at the moment, but Dean just glares.

Sam sighs, sits there leaning back on his arms while the world spins around him. "Three demons, some kind of altar. I think the wind storm was some kind of... anti-theft device. As soon as the demons triggered the alarm, the windstorm started to push everything away, keeping the Seal safe. The altar had some old Phoenician Egret runes carved into the burning wood - I think they were trying to weaken the windstorm so their friends could get in and destroy the Seal."

Dean watches him, finally nods but he doesn't look super happy about it. "The storm went into super sonic mode at some point, I guess when you destroyed the altar. The demons trying to get at it ran off, and as soon as they were gone, the storm vanished."

Sam nods. "I guess that's that then. One Seal saved."

Dean still hasn't helped him up. He's still watching Sam.

"What."

"You took on three demons?"

"Yeah?"

"Alone."

"_Yeah_."

Dean nods, his hands tighten into fists, he looks off like he's marshalling his composure. "I thought we talked about this, Sam-"

"Wait, no." Sam frowns. "I didn't -"

"Didn't what?" Dean gestures at the bodies lying on the ground around them. "I only see one stab wound here, Sammy. You wanna explain?"

"I exorcised them-"

"Yeah, I guessed that-"

"Dean, _stop_. I did it the old-fashioned way, okay?"

"While fighting them."

"Yeah. I dropped the knife, I couldn't reach it, it was all I could do, okay?" Sam watches Dean, his slow brain just now realizing Dean's been standing here for a while trying to convince himself of something. Long enough that he's checked over the bodies for causes of death before even attempting to rouse Sam or dress his neck wound. Sam slumps, shakes his head. "Nevermind, man. Whatever." He leans forward to try to get to his feet, and Dean's there, got his hand around Sam's upper arm and he pulls Sam up, faster than Sam can keep up with and Sam's falling into Dean, Dean's arms patting at his chest as he mutters, "Whoa, take it easy little brother," and detaches himself once he's sure Sam can stand on his own.

Dean doesn't look at him the whole way back to the motel. He's still pissed. Sam braces himself.

It takes an hour sitting in silence for it to bubble over. It's a spectacular mess, even by their standards.

"That you would just lie to my face-"

"Dean, I'm not lying-"

"I'm supposed to believe that? After the things I've seen you do? I mean what are you, Sam? What are you turning into?"

"You say that like you think I'm some sort of..." Sam looks away.

Dean advances, lets the silence drag, then. "Some sort of monster, Sammy?" he says quietly.

Sam doesn't meet his gaze.

"Why would you use that word, Sam?" he says, and it's quiet too. It's careful, measured, dangerous.

"I didn't."

"No. You didn't."

Sam risks a look. Dean's nodding, considering.

"You oughta just own it, _Sammy_," he says. "This whole monster thing. Lying to me - and the things Dad and I did just to protect you, when all along you were-"

"Don't you dare invoke _Dad_ in this, don't you dare-"

"Why, because he'd be so proud of whatever you are?"

"I guess we'll never know-"

Dean's eyes go bright and Sam is staggering back before he realizes what's happened, he's staggering back and into the little motel table and he and it are going over. He's on his ass and his mouth is bleeding and Dean's shoulders are heaving.

"You don't know anything," Dean says, breathless, and Sam realizes his mistake.

"I wasn't blaming you, Dean," he says from the ground. He's wary, wary in a way he hasn't been around Dean before, something about that brightness in his eyes.

Dean blinks and a little of that shine vanishes. He doesn't move.

"Dean, I wasn't - I _don't_ blame you for Dad dying. I don't. Dean."

Dean swallows, looks away, finally. "You know, this thing you're doin', Sam," he says. His voice is like a whisper. "This thing you've become? I didn't sell my soul for this, Sam."

Sam sags, falls fully against the wall behind him, stares into the middle distance. "I know." He rubs his nose. Takes a deep breath. "But I'm not doing anything, Dean. I'm not _becoming_ anything."

Dean rolls his eyes, shuffles his shoulders like he's being put-upon, and offers Sam a hand up. "Whatever."

"I'm not."

"I believe you. I guess."

Sam takes his hand and again, Dean hauls him up like Sam weighs nothing. Dean steers him into the bathroom, sits him on the toilet seat and starts water running. "I do believe you, Sam," he says. His voice is quiet again, but it's different, there's a roughness to it. "I just-"

"I know," Sam says.

"No, you don't." Dean drops the cloth he's wetting into the sink and stands up, backs away a step, doesn't look up at Sam. "Sammy, I. You gotta understand, I just - I was on that path, you know? Down under. I was walking down that road and I - I've seen what... Sam I just can't watch you take that path, I just want to save you from what I watched happen-"

"Dean," Sam says. Dean's never spoken about Hell again, not since that first tearful admission, and even that wasn't this... thoughtful. "Dean, it's okay. I'm not doing anything. I'm not-"

Dean shakes himself together and comes at Sam's face with the wet towel. "Okay, calm down," he grumbles, almost enough like himself that Sam can laugh.

But he can't yet. "Dean. Thanks."

"Don't thank me until after I've stitched up this neck of yours." He flashes a grin at Sam with an eyebrow that promises miles of teasing.

Sam laughs.

* * *

"Hey," Dean calls from the driver's seat.

"I know, I know. Pie." Sam rolls his eyes, but they've been good. Better, anyway. Dean winks at him and drives off toward the bar. Sam heads toward the little convenience store for supplies.

The store's got instant coffee and road food, some wrapped sandwiches in the to-go case, and Sam picks up a little of everything. They've been good. Well, they've been _better_. Dean likes to eat. Dean wants this unhealthy crap to remember that he's topside, to remember that his body is his to trash if he wants to, and Sam gets it. So Sam gets trash for Dean and a couple of sandwiches, a sixer of the cheapest beer, and the cashier tells him where the nearest - only - motel is.

He walks.

The night is just coming on, stars starting to poke through the canopy. Dean's food weighs heavy in his hand, Dean is real and he's here and it's everything Sam wanted during those four desperate months, so he'll carry this weight - the crap food in the bag swinging into his leg over and over, the guilt of not being able to save Dean, the shame of what he'd done while Dean was gone - he'll carry this weight.

They're waiting for him - the only room left in the only motel in town, if he'd known they were being stalked, he'd have been more careful - but they are waiting for him when he opens the door.

He doesn't smell it at first. He crosses the motel room, drops Dean's food off on the table, heads to the bathroom to do the bare essentials of bedding down in a new place, and when he comes out to put some of the food into the mini fridge, there they are and the smell of sulfur hits him.

Dean's food crashes to the ground when one of the three demons full-body tackles him backward into the table. Sam's breath goes out of him and then he's in survival mode, knife out and across the room into the second demon before she can even wipe the sneer off her face. But now he's weaponless, and he mutters the beginning of the exorcism-

And the first demon's hands are around his neck, choking off his words. Sam's knee is in the guy's groin; as the demon doubles over briefly, Sam twists out of his grip and lunges for the knife stuck in the corpse, only to find himself flattened to the ground by the third demon - _demons come in threes, is that a saying?_ \- and feels something crack in his chest. He flails back behind him and his hand loops into the handle of the bag with the sixer in it. She's almost knocked out cold after he's swung it at her head, and if she hadn't been a demon, she'd have ended up with brain damage, probably.

But as it stands, it's still Sam against two uninjured, pissed off demons. He opens his mouth to try another exorcism, and the guy demon swings a hand; Sam flies into the wall, wind stolen.

"I heard you were tougher than this," the guy says. He pushes his hand forward and Sam feels the pressure on his chest burn as it strains the integrity of his ribcage. He can't breathe, but he glares, he glares.

The guy laughs. "Wow. This is what everyone's so afraid of?" He steps closer, step step and every step increases the pressure. Black spots crowd in from the periphery of Sam's vision. "I thought you were some kinda demon hunter kid."

The woman crosses her arms next to the guy. There's blood running down her face, but the demon doesn't care to heal it. Running blood probably means the demon's host is still alive. Probably means she could still-

Sam closes his eyes. He can't. Even if he wanted to, he hasn't seen Ruby in so long now, and he hasn't gotten good enough at it yet, and-

The pressure eases. He can breathe, barely, but it's something. He opens his eyes to see the two demons are turned away from him, conferencing. He can, if he can get it off fast enough, he can maybe save the hosts-

"_Exorcizamus-_"

"_Oh_ no," the guy says, and the woman brings her fist up in front of her - Sam's front jerks forward, and then he's across the room collapsing against the wall. _Fuck_. But before he can get himself together, the guy is there, bashes him in the face a couple of times, blood bursts into his mouth, Sam is fighting to get himself upright and get control of this situation. He kicks up and out, catching the guy in the chin and sending him reeling back. They will not just sit quietly so Sam can exorcise them. But- he eyes them warily, they watch him, curious, and when he thinks he has enough air for it, he takes off for the bathroom.

They give chase, Sam heads for the window, throws it open like he might escape. The woman rushes in after him, drags him from the window with a gesture and flings him back into the main room. When she tries to come back after him, she freezes at the edge of the bathmat on the floor and shrieks in frustration.

Sam grins, bloody teeth, and turns to the other demon. "I couldn't even _fit _through that window," he says. "Come on now, _this _is what everyone's so afraid of?"

The guy demon has the presence of mind to look worried. Sam watches him eyeball every inch of space that is covered by a duffel bag or a ratty rug. He looks around him at the carpet that covers the whole room, probably wondering if he's been trapped this whole time, if all Sam needs to do is leave the room and this guy will be stuck. Sam grins, playing man with the upper hand, saunters around the room like he knows something this guy doesn't.

Problem is, he doesn't have any more tricks up his sleeve. Putting down the first of the devil's trapped items in the bathroom had been step one of a fifteen step plan he doesn't even think Dean knows the full extent of, something he's done for years but that still needs to be _done_.

Sam glances over at the rug between the two beds, hoping he looks like he's trying to be inconspicuous about it, just enough that the guy will suspect Sam has traps everywhere - and his eye happens to catch the handle of the knife sticking out of the chest of the demon he'd taken down first. He circles around the man still watching him warily, backs over that rug; the demon still in play won't come near him if he thinks he'll be trapped. And he grabs the hilt of the knife.

A moment later, he's leaping for the guy, feels the blade bite through flesh, but not on target. The demon roars in pain and brings his whole weight down on Sam, elbow in between the shoulderblades and Sam goes down on that already cracked rib, he can feel the blood choking upward, he can taste the metallic burn, he's not going to make it this time. The demon flips him and bangs his fist into Sam's face twice, and things go dark.

He's only out a few seconds, he figures, because he's blinking into the carpet and he's still alive and the knife is in his hand and the demon is on the phone.

"No, like I'm telling you, nothing. He ain't got it. No boss, I'm sure." He listens for a bit, or maybe Sam blacks out again.

The next thing he hears is Dean yelling his name outside the motel door. Sam pries his eyes open, he's got to warn Dean there's a demon in here. He can see Dean in the window, out in the parking lot with his phone against his ear.

"Dean," he starts, but his voice is raspy, and the demon turns to him, raises his boot, Sam squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation, but the door bursts open and Dean's there, phone in hand, eyes going first to Sam on the floor, then to the demon about to kick his little brother's face in. The righteous fury in Dean's face is enough; Sam lets his eyes close and listens to Dean take out the trash. "Bathroom," he mutters when things go quiet, and smiles at Dean's soft curse. Another round of fight, of crunch and big brother badass, and Sam remembers nothing until he wakes up on his bed, fully clothed with bandages already covering the stitched gash on his cheekbone.

The next day, Dean asks him to show him all the room-proofing tricks Sam has been doing all these years.

* * *

The Death of Enoch is a seal. There are more than three demons this time, and Sam smiles to himself about it. Maybe _demons come in threes_ is more a suggestion than a rule.

"What's he smiling about?"

"I dunno."

One demon has him by the neck; blood drools out of his mouth and over the demon's knuckles. The other _six_ demons are rifling through their research on Enoch's location. Dean's out cold on the floor.

Out cold and he hasn't moved, and that is worrying. Also worrying: the black spots dancing in front of Sam's eyes.

"Just take him out. We got the other one to torture if we need to."

Sam shifts his bleary gaze to the one who said that, a stiff-haired lady in a tracksuit who probably has grandkids or pugs or something and would definitely never have said "we got one to torture if we need to," and to her this is a nightmare, worse than a nightmare, it's the end of the world, and it will be if-

But he knows he's rationalizing. Yes, he'd like to save that grandma. But more importantly, he can't let Dean go through anymore torture at a demon's hands.

He can't he can't -

Sam raises his hand, tries to unknot that power at the back of his mind. He envisions it like an evil little ball of oily yarn, from which he teases a strand little by little until the whole thing falls apart and the power just _surges_-

The demons look at him and hold their breath, frozen in place.

Waiting.

They wait.

Sam waits.

Nothing happens.

He tries again, desperate.

The demons look a little more relaxed, but still warily watch his hand tremble in the air between him and them. The veins in his forearm stand up with the effort, he's getting lightheaded.

He exhales again. He can't do it. _Fuck_.

The demons grin, slowly, then they're just _laughing_ at him, at the pathetic loser, the toothless dog. Sam looks up, half-passed out. They don't know what he knows, so he smiles, blood teeth.

Only one of the demons has the presence of mind to look worried about that smile. As he turns to look behind him, Dean's knife thrusts upward through his jaw. The others smoke out on the spot. Sam drops to the ground, lays there panting until Dean shoves him with his foot.

"What the fuck was that?" Dean says.

Whoops.

"I didn't think you were awake-"

"So if I can't see it, it's okay?" Dean doesn't even help him up, just storms around shuffling papers together and kicking shit and knocking things over. "What the fucking hell, Sam? We _talked_ about this. You _promised_ me. And now-"

"Dean, they were going to _torture_ you, and I couldn't-"

"Oooh _now_ you couldn't. Where were you when it was actually happening, huh? Oh that's right, not getting my ass out of hell. No, you were slumming it up with that bitch. Tell me how that worked out for ya, Sammy? Did it get your poor selfless brother back, or did it, right, yeah, it did, it got you a good lay and some neato psychic powers. Awesome. Good to know you got my back now."

"Dean that's not how it was-"

"No? Then why'd an angel have to save me, if what you were doin' was gettin' me back?"

Sam gets up from the ground. "Stop it! I'm not doing anything, you just _saw_ me not do anything!"

Dean sweeps a lamp off the little table onto the floor. "You tried!" He advances on Sam, grabs Sam's jacket when Sam backs away. "You're lying to my face, and you don't even care, you don't even see what this is gonna turn you into, that it's gonna make you something-"

"What!"

"Something evil, Sam. It's gonna make you what you always were gonna become." Dean pulls Sam close, Sam can smell the whiskey. "You were always evil, I knew it even when we were kids."

"No."

"You knew it too."

"No!"

"You gotta stop it-"

"I'm not _doing_ anything-"

Dean's left hook spins him; blood bursts in his mouth, coppery tang.

"Liar!"

Dean's fist crashes into Sam's face and Sam goes to his knees, blinking in shock. "Dean-"

"Don't you open your fucking mouth! Don't you say a fucking word to me!" Another hit, and Sam is down, and Dean keeps coming, until Sam is reduced to just pressing upward, trying to get Dean off of him, pushing up on Dean's face.

Dean doesn't stop until he is exhausted. He falls backward onto his ass, breathing hard.

Sam is wheezing, coughing blood. He feels limp. He doesn't know what just happened, all he can hear is that Dean is crying, Dean is begging for something, he catches the words _I'm sorry oh God, please I'm sorry Sammy_ and then he feels hands on his face and when he wakes up, he wakes up in sweats under the blankets in his bed, wounds dressed. There's a glass of water and painkillers on the nightstand next to him.

* * *

A week later, Sam is still limping but the swelling in his eye is going down. Neither of them mention it, but it's there in the room. Sam still remembers Dean's voice cracking _I'm sorry Sammy I'm sorry_ and Dean can't look at him and that's enough for Sam.

That stuff about Sam being evil from birth, it's not true, Dean doesn't believe that.

Sam looks down at his hands limp in his lap as they ride the highway and thinks _If Dean doesn't believe that, he's wrong._

"It's not your fault," Dean says, out of the blue.

Sam frowns at his hands a moment before he remembers - Dean's talking about the hunt yesterday, another Seal they failed to save. A Seal _Sam_ failed to save because he isn't strong enough these days, because Dean is watching his every move now, because every time he uses the knife, he imagines himself killing an innocent victim, _actively_ imagines it, what they must be thinking, whether they're grateful for being freed from that hell, whether they know they don't have to die, except that some kid wants to keep some promise to his brother, and if it weren't for that, they could be saved to try to put their lives back together-

"Sam, you with me?"

"What?"

"I'm talkin' to you dude. I thought you were all about the Dr. Phil."

"No, I'm here, just thinking. Sorry. Yeah, not my fault, sure."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Real convincing. I'm trying to tell you you did good. So we didn't save the Seal. There are still like..."

"Thirty-eight," Sam says.

"Thirty-eight whole Seals to protect-"

"No, Dean. There are like two hundred Seals to protect. Demons only have to break thirty-eight more of them. We have to protect them _all_."

Dean's face darkens. "And let me guess. You think we could save them all if only you could do your wooboo freaky shit-"

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. I can't do it anymore."

"Just like that, you can't do it."

"That's right."

"Not your best lie, bro."

"I haven't been practicing, Dean. It takes work."

Dean frowns. "So you could just start practicing again and get right back to poofing demons."

Sam looks out the window. It's more complicated than Dean knows, it'd require actually picking up one of Ruby's calls, but - "Yeah, I guess." He braces himself for the blowout.

"Don't do it, Sam."

Dean's voice is quiet. It's not what Sam expected. He looks over at Dean. Dean is white-knuckled on the steering wheel, focused on the road so hard.

"I know you feel responsible for what happened to me, Sam. But I made the deal-"

"For me."

"Yeah. And I'd do it again. Just don't do this to yourself out of some backwards idea of revenge-"

"Backwards?" Sam is incredulous. "Is that what you'd tell Dad if he were in my position? No, and you know how I know that? You didn't, not ever, not once did you tell him his quest for revenge was 'backwards.'"

"That was for _Mom_-"

"And this is for you!"

Silence.

Sam's last words ring out in the empty space between them, seem to scatter themselves on the road in front of them or stumble along behind them as they hurtle down the highway. _This is for you_, he said, and he still means it. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it for Dean.

If he's exorcising an army of demons to get to Lilith, he's doing it for Dean. If he's throwing himself onto a hundred Seals to save the world from Lucifer, he's doing it for Dean. If he's made himself powerless and finds himself lying in a pool of his own blood-

He's doing it for Dean.

He looks over.

Dean-

-is _smiling_.

Sam frowns. "Dean-"

Dean glances over at him and his smile vanishes briefly. He looks back at the road, the smile reappears like a ghost over his mouth. He shakes his head.

"Dean, what-"

"Sorry, I know I should be pissed. And I am, okay. That little slip of yours..." Dean laughs. "But you just have no idea how much I wanted - how long I've waited to hear-" He huffs out a breath, sobers. "I waited a long time to hear you say that _anything _you do is for me."

Sam pales, looks forward. Tries to remember that this isn't new information. Dean has called Sam selfish lots of times, when they were kids, when he was leaving for college in a spectacularly horrific blow-up that landed Sam out on his own three weeks before school even started.

The even keel he'd always gotten from reminding himself that wanting to go to school is normal, wanting safe isn't shameful - it's not there anymore.

"This hell thing really messed us up good, didn't it, Sammy."

Sam looks out the window. "Yeah. I guess."

* * *

Dean goes into the convenience store next time they stop for gas. Sam watches him go, still thinking about that strange smile on Dean's face.

He's perseverating; he needs a distraction. He pulls out his phone.

"Hey, Cas."

"_Sam. Where's Dean?"_

"Um. He's buying supplies."

"_Oh."_

There's a pause.

"_Why have you called on me, Sam Winchester?"_

Sam looks across the blacktop gas station parking lot, through the window to see Dean perusing the skin mags.

"We lost a Seal," he says.

"_I know._"

"No, I know you know. I just. What are we gonna do?"

"_We will keep fighting to protect the rest of the Seals. Of course."_

Sam nods, subdued. "Of course." More silence. "Hey Castiel."

"_Yes?"_

"What if... I mean is it possible... Could God have a plan even you guys don't know about?"

"_What do you mean?"_

"Well, what if he has a plan that just doesn't fit our conventional ideas of good and evil? What if God was willing to use, say... an evil man to a good purpose?"

There's a pause. Sam gnaws on his thumbnail.

"_Do you believe you are an evil man, Sam Winchester?"_

"No, of course not." Maybe. "I'm just saying-"

"_The demon's blood inside you is evil, Sam."_

"Yeah, I _know_ but-"

"_You believe God would use something evil to work His will?"_

"I'm saying that the only people I can hurt with this ability is demons. I can save people. Me, a hunter who's been raised his whole life to save people, a person who prays and believes and - I'm saying couldn't _that_ be God's will? To use the enemy against itself? Why else did any of this happen?"

There's another pause, and even though he's been working up to this conversation for a long time, even though he's argued this point to himself many times, it falls flat to his ears now, and the dead air of the open phone line is condemning. Cas breathes out a breath.

When he speaks again, his voice is softer, closer to the phone. _"There's both merit and precedent for such a thing- Sam, I've got to go. I'll contact you soon."_

There's a shuffle on the other end of the phone, the deep voice of Uriel and then Cas hangs up before Sam can even say goodbye or ask if everything's okay.

And then Dean is coming out of the convenience store, so Sam puts his phone away and pretends to believe that everything's going to be okay.

* * *

"No, Bobby, I know."

"_I'm serious. I know Dean don't sleep more'n four hours a night and if you're anything like you were as a kid, you don't sleep half that yourself. We're running a marathon, kid, not a sprint."_

"I _know_. I'll sleep, I promise. And I'll make Dean sleep too."

"_And you just call me if he... starts actin', uh, weird. You know."_

Weird like, if he beats your face in again, weird like if he accuses you of something you just demonstrated you can't do and therefore haven't been doing - yeah, calling Bobby would be the first thing Sam does. Sure.

He'd asked questions, the first time they visited him after that last big blow up, when Sam woke up seeing double. _What the hell did you boys tangle with_ Bobby asked as he turned Sam's face from side to side, and Sam pulled out of his grasp and he and Dean looked at each other - Sam had looked away and Dean had looked angry and later that evening Bobby got Sam alone to ask how things were between him and Dean. He hadn't gotten much in the way of answers, but for Bobby, just standing there was like handing him your private diary, and he heard him laying into Dean the next morning while they worked on a junker in the yard. Over beers, and quiet so they wouldn't wake Sam, or quiet because Bobby couldn't stand to really tan Dean's hide after Hell, or because he didn't want to discourage Dean from making sure Sam wasn't drinking-

Whatever.

"Sure, Bobby. I will." Sam hangs up the phone, his palm lingers on the handset a little.

Dean after Hell - Hell he went to for _Sam_.

Sam sighs, shoves his hands in his pockets. Goes to find Dean, wherever Dean's gone in this motel. Maybe to get ice. Sam wanders.

And as he wanders, he thinks.

About Dean in Hell, screaming, about how difficult it has been to get Dean to talk about anything, about how Dean seems to be opening up lately to him about it - about how he's been so angry, even after he's fully convinced Sam's not doing anything to make himself stronger.

And he thinks about Bobby, he thinks about Dad, what they'd do about Dean, or if they'd do anything about Dean, or if they'd think Dean was right to be angry and not let it go, if they'd think Dean was right to knock Sam on his ass. Dad had told Dean he'd have to kill him some day; what if Dad's calculations had just been off? What if Hell had hardened something in Dean, what if Dean could snap his neck without a thought, what if there was nothing holding them together anymore-

He thinks about Dean sobbing _I'm sorry, Sammy_, and he tries to remember why it felt manufactured.

"No, it's going great," Dean says, around the corner.

Sam peers, but Dean's just on the phone, so he retreats out of sight and listens.

"Super great and fun," Dean continues, sarcasm dripping. "No, he's not. But he could start again anytime. Because he told me he just needs practice and bam-" A finger snap. "He's up and exorcising." A pause.

"Yeah of course I believe him. I'm his big brother."

More sarcasm - Dean must be in a mood again. Sam'll have to watch where he puts his feet.

"He wouldn't lie to me."

Okay, that sounds better.

"Thirteen Seals left. How're you guys doing?" Some non-committal sounds of affirmation. "Well do better. This Apocalypse ain't gonna fix itself." Dean laughs a little. It sounds strange, Sam realizes, because it doesn't feel _forced_. "Yeah. Report back soon. I wanna know what all your little pawns are doing." Pause. "Because I'm doing all the heavy lifting over here, that's why."

A longer pause.

"Sam?"

Busted. Sam backs up a few steps and calls out, "Dean?" Then he breaks into a jog, looking back and forth, pulls up to a stop. "This is where you've been."

Dean doesn't look like he fully buys it.

"Who's on the phone?" Sam says, nodding down at the phone in Dean's hand.

"Oh, Cas. Just checking in. Dinner?"

"Sure," Sam says. "I'll run out for it if you demon proof the room, cool?"

Dean nods, distracted and watching Sam too carefully.

"Kay. I'll be back."

* * *

"Cas," Sam whispers into the phone. He's half a mile away, sitting at a table waiting for their pizza to finish.

"_Has the situation changed in the hour since you called me last?"_

"Yeah, I think so, maybe."

There's a pause on the line.

"Cas?"

"_I'm sorry. That was meant to be a joke, based on the notion that it has been an incredibly short amount of time between now and our last conversation, during which it is extremely unlikely that catastrophic events have occurred-"_

"I wouldn't underestimate the Winchester capacity for attracting catastrophe, Cas."

"_Noted. Why have you called me, Sam?"_

"Cas, have you talked with Dean today?"

"_No. Why?"_

"He didn't call to give you an update on the Seals business?"

"_I don't need an update on the 'Seals business.' I am attuned to this matter in every way and do not require notice of defeat or success-"_

"Yeah, I know, but-"

"_Sam, is there something wrong?"_

Sam sighs. "Yeah. I just..."

"_Sam?"_

Sam laughs a little, humorless. "I don't know which one of you is lying to me."

"_I have no reason to lie to you."_

"Which is exactly what you'd say if you were lying to me."

"_I suppose that is true. Rest assured, however, that I am not."_

Sam has to laugh at that. Castiel is so alien, it's hard to believe he and his kind listened to Sam's prayers - oh. Of course they didn't. He was an abomination. Right. "Okay. Whatever. I just-"

"_You are not an evil man, Sam. I don't believe that, no matter what is inside you. I have been thinking since our last conversation, about God using the tools of Hell against those evil forces. If it could be anyone, it would be you, Sam. You possess that strength, I see that now."_

Sam is stunned for a moment. All he can say is "...I..."

"_Believe me when I say I did not talk to Dean today. I have not spoken to Dean in weeks."_

Sam nods. "Okay. I believe you." _Angels are dicks. _Sam ignores Dean's voice in his head. "I'll call you when I've figured this out."

"_Be sure that you do. Goodbye, Sam."_

Sam hangs up with a strange sense of foreboding. Cas has never been _warm_ with him.

Either way, Dean lied to him about talking with Cas, which means he was talking with someone else, someone who knew something about the apocalypse, someone who has pawns - that someone wasn't Bobby. And it wasn't Cas.

And it hits Sam then like a barrage of scenes in a movie:

Dean, talking about Hell.

Dean, smiling just too much, just too little.

Dean, _talking about Hell_, after beating Sam's ass - Sam forgiving him because it was _Hell_.

Dean, volunteering to lay down the devil's traps in hotel rooms, after making Sam show him every place he usually lays one down, something Sam forgave because Dean never did know all the lengths Sam went to to stay hidden.

Dean, wearing long sleeve shirts, Dean telling him it was because of _Hell_ and Sam believed it and stopped fucking asking-

Dean talking on the phone outside the motel, while Sam was fading with his face in the carpet, the demon in the room saying "he doesn't have it," and then, _then_ Dean happens to burst in, takes out two demons alone, and-

The smell of the pizzeria sticks in the back of his throat, the room spins. Sam pulls out his phone, presses speed dial.

"_Hello?"_

"Bobby."

"_Sam? Everything okay? You know-"_

"No. Everything's not okay. I think Dean's-"

"Oh my oh my, little brother."

Sam freezes at the sound of Dean's voice.

"Found you, bro. Time to go back to the room."


	3. Chapter 3

"Found you, bro. Time for us to go back to the room."

"I don't think so."

Dean strolls around the half-full dining room, people playing on their phones waiting for their pizzas or chatting with friends. "Well I do. And I'm the big brother." He looks around the room suggestively. "You wouldn't wanna piss me off, would you?"

Sam chews a lip. He can't risk these people. He lets Dean drive him back to the hotel.

"Why?"

Dean pulls them into a parking space and turns to Sam. "That's all you have to say? Wow. You were supposed to be the smart one."

Sam frowns in confusion, but Dean's slamming out of the car, and Sam follows him, has to get a handle on this situation. He can't let Dean run around, he can't let a demon stay in him, and the demon seems to know that, because he doesn't even turn around to make sure Sam's still following him until he gets to the front door, where he turns with a light-hearted signature "Dean" smile - it makes him sick now how well this thing can imitate Dean, and just as sick to think anything could have fooled him into thinking it was Dean when it wasn't.

"Come on, Sammy. Pizza's getting cold."

Sam follows him in.

"It was at the farmhouse, right?"

Dean - the demon, anyway - smiles. "How'd you guess?"

"Witches get their power from demons. And that wound I stitched up for you, it was a lot worse at the house than it was by the time we were at the motel."

"Whoops."

"Whatever your plan is, you're blown. Your best bet is to just cut your losses. Leave Dean and regroup."

Dean smirked. "Like you'd kill your own brother."

"He'd prefer death to this, and you know it."

"Probably. Doesn't mean you can gank him."

Sam frowns. Fuck. "Dean!" Sam shouts, and it's desperate and he knows that even if Dean can hear him, he can't _do_ anything about it, he can't _do_ anything, and Sam is far too familiar with that sensation, of screaming inside himself, watching himself kill a man in cold blood, watching his own hands draw the blade across- "Dean!"

Dean laughs at him, cruel. It's not Dean's face at all, Sam can see now all the cruelties Dean could create and never does. Even when he's beating him down, telling him he doesn't know who Sam is anymore. Even through all of that, Dean had never been so _happy_ about it. Now, now he is.

"Come on, _Sammy_," he says, arms spread. "I know you're just dying to gut me."

"I'm not afraid of you," Sam says, buying time, stepping backward. He can lead Dean to the devil's-

"Good. Smart," Dean says, sauntering across the room. Sam matches him, keeping space between them. "Except I know where every devil's trap is in this joint. Courtesy you."

"Yeah? Well I didn't tell you all of 'em."

Dean chuckles. "Right right. You didn't mention the ones Dean-o already knew about."

Sam's hope is dying. "That's right."

The demon taps Dean's temple. "I got it all right here, open access. You must remember, right?"

Sam frowns. "What do you even want? What was your plan here? Keep an eye on us? On me? Why?"

Dean laughs. "Why would I answer any of your questions? You ain't the one with leverage here, kiddo."

Sam bristles. At _kiddo_ and at Dean's mouth saying it, and at the demon as it stalked toward him. Sam backs up, nodding. "That's what I thought. No plan, no nothing. Just another bottom feeder."

"Aw, that hurts."

"What, do you _know_ us or something? Don't you have some Seals to break?" He quirked a lip. "Or no, I get it. You're on _babysitting_ detail. That's gotta sting."

The demon tilts his head at Sam, grins malicious. "Trying to get me to spill my guts. Well if that isn't just like you, Sammy. Aren't you always trying to get dear old Dean to give up the deets on Hell?"

Sam frowns.

"I could tell you," the demon says, walks Dean's body around, circling Sam, watching him sly. "I got an all access pass. I know everything. How he screamed for you to save him, damned you for failing. Oh, yours is the most cursed name in all of hell, Sammy."

"Shut up."

"But the best is how he hated himself for picking up the blade himself-"

"Shut _up_-"

"I only wish it'd lasted longer, that self-hatred. Hatred turned into pleasure so fast-"

"Shut up!" It's too much, knowing Dean would never want these things talked about like this, never want this to get out of his head, so Sam launches himself at the demon in his brother's body, and they hurtle across the room. The demon laughs as Dean's head bounces off the wall behind him, And then he's bending Sam backward by the arms, demon strength easily overwhelming him. Sam feels his shoulder start to burn and he opens his mouth. "_Exorcizamus te-_"

The demon throws his head back and laughs. Sam watches in horror as it doesn't even begin to smoke out - even as he's thinking _it must have locked itself in, like Meg did_, he's taking advantage of the demon's glee, throws himself backward with the demon's twisting rather than fighting against it, and uses the momentum to kick up and out, breaking the demon's hold.

The knife. It's his only option now. Sam pulls it from his belt.

"Really?" the demon says. "Gonna kill big brother?"

Sam scrambles backward, knife held out in front of him like a ward. "Come and see," he spits back.

The demon leaps for him, cackling with glee. It sounds foreign coming from Dean. Not that Dean doesn't take great childish glee in simple pleasures, but it's different when it's really Dean. It's purer, honest. It's _Dean_, just a little mischievous, a little wrong, like the giddy grin on his face when the wind blows up some poor woman's skirt, and she's all embarrassed, looking around to see if anyone's noticed, and Dean pretends he hasn't seen, but he turns around to look at Sam like someone's just given him the world on a plate. That's Dean at 15 and Sam's 11. That's Dean at 26 and Sam's 22, rolling his eyes at how uncool it is to be happy at someone else's embarrassment. That's Dean at 29 and Sam's 25, desperately trying to figure out how to stop his brother from going to hell, while Dean is busy living his last moments as well as he can-

Sam's head hits the floor, the demon wields Dean's body like every part of it is a weapon, knees digging down into Sam's hipbones, one arm across Sam's windpipe, the other a fist in his face, twice before he can marshal himself.

The knife is still in his hand. Sam scrambles with the other hand against the arm pressing down on his throat, pushes up the arm, pulls at the sleeve, frantic - and locks eyes with the demon once Dean's forearm is bared.

"I knew you didn't have the stones," the demon says, glancing down and aside at the knife still clutched in Sam's hand.

"You know me so well," Sam spits, and the knife comes up. He can feel it slick through Dean's skin like it was nothing at all, the slide through tissue, quick. The demon hisses and rears up, arm to its chest.

"Bastard!" it whines, looking down at Dean's bleeding forearm, where the demonic lock is sliced in two.

Sam shoves backward, but the demon latches onto his leg before he can disengage fully. "_Exorcizamus te_," he says, kicking hard. He breaks free while the demon is trying to keep itself inside Dean. Sam flips over, tries to get up, but the demon catches his foot and yanks, and Sam comes down hard.

"_-omnis immundus spiritus, omnis-"_

"Shut the fuck up!" The demon drags Sam backward. Sam scrabbles at the wooden floor, pulls on the chair leg, the cord of the lamp, the edge of the desk. Paper flutters at the disturbance, the chair overturns, the lamp crashes, glass crunch. But he keeps his mouth moving, he can still talk, he can still save Dean.

"-_satanica potesta-"_

The demon crawls up Sam's body even as it hauls Sam backward, and it flips Sam by a firm grasp on Sam's arm. "_No_," it says, and it's terrifying to watch Dean watch him so casually, like he's reprimanding a bad dog, as his hand comes up to Sam's throat.

For a moment, Sam is afraid this demon is going to strangle him to keep him from exorcizing it, but then the thing smiles, smiles so wrong at him, and his hand moves up to just below his ears, strength in Dean's grip Dean does not have on his own, and the demon opens his mouth in a laugh as it squeezes and Sam feels the slow, inexorable burn of his jaw dislocating. With a pop Sam is sure is only in his head, it comes out of the hinge on either side of his face and his body jerks without his meaning it to, he screams without meaning to.

Dean sits up, breathing with exertion, but Sam thinks distantly it's all for show, there's no physical effort required to overpower Sam, not for a demon with the face of his brother, not for a demon Sam can't just _kill_. This demon gets off on the endorphins; Ruby always had.

"I don't wanna kill ya, Sammy," the demon says with Dean's voice. "But I will if I have to. So be a good boy, okay? We've got some work to do."

_Like what_, Sam wants to ask, but he tries to open his mouth and his stomach lurches. He tastes blood in his mouth from earlier blows and can't swallow it because he can't move his jaw and he's going to choke on it.

"Ex- exorcissaauss," he tries, but the demon just laughs at him.

"What was that? Can't quite hear ya, buddy." The demon is high off the fight, cocky, confident, too much like Dean in this moment, too much when Sam just wants Dean back, wants this to be over. Dean's hand goes to his pocket, flicks out his little pocketknife, honed to a precision edge. "You are just too persistent. Let's just stop trying altogether, okay?" It leans forward toward Sam again.

A moment later, Sam is screaming and near unconsciousness on the floor, blood is flooding his mouth where it's been pried open on a hinge that's out of joint, and his tongue is half gone.

"There now," Dean says, sitting back up. The demon wipes its hand across Dean's face, smears the blood spatter there.

Sam chokes, blinks at the ceiling. He doesn't know why the demon's kept him alive. Chances are, it hasn't really, it's just waiting for him to be boring, it's just waiting for him to bleed out. Dean will have this blood on his hands. Dean already has this blood on his hands, if by some miracle they make it out of this.

The knife is still in his hand. The demon is slapping his face lightly, trying to rouse him a bit, taunting him about giving up or being weak or taking a nap or whatever nonsense Sam doesn't intend to dignify with a response. But he blinks and squeezes the hilt of the knife still in his hand.

In a moment, the knife is at the demon's throat.

The demon blinks, grin vanishes for a moment before it's back, bigger. "Found the stones, eh?" it says. "I don't believe it for a moment."

Sam isn't paying attention. _Dean_, he thinks, eyes on Dean's, willing his brother to see and understand. Dean wouldn't want this. Dean wouldn't want to be the one who killed Sam. They had their rough spots when Dean first got back from Hell, Dean doesn't like Sam really, not anymore. Loves him, okay, but doesn't like him. He doesn't trust Sam's choices, he doesn't trust that Sam has stopped the demon blood, but it doesn't matter. Dean wouldn't want this. _Dean, Dean._

The demon frowns, breathes hard. Dean's face crumples. And it's _Dean_, and he says "Sammy do it, do it. Don't you let me kill you goddammit. Sammy!" and that last word is choked with anguish and desperation and Sam mouths, much as it pains him:

_I'm sorry._

"Sam Sam Sam-"

The demon stiffens up a moment later and Dean's eyes go black and mean. "Hope you got your fucking tearful goodbyes taken care of."

Sam presses in with the blade of the demon killing knife, just to remind the demon who has the leverage, but the demon just shakes its head.

"Think I didn't see that little show? Big bro told you to off him and you can't do it. You _apologized_. Pathetic."

Sam's hand shakes. A bead of blood wells up where he has cut superficially into Dean's neck. This is like Dad all over again. Dad and Yellow Eyes, and revenge and sacrifice and how Sam is never strong enough, how Dean always pays the price for Sam's weakness. How Sam can never ever save Dean. He coughs on blood again, the knife drops to his chest, then drags down to the floor as his body starts to give out on him.

"That's what I thought," the demon preens. It gets up then. Walks around the room, tidies up. Starts packing. Talking, about taking a trip, about having work to do but Sam can't hear anything useful because he's turned his head and he's staring at his own tongue laying on the floor in front of his face, and he's thinking through the haze of pain and blood loss that Dean does not want this. Dean explicitly does not want this.

But Sam can't kill him. There is a single option that allows for possibly both of them to survive, definitely one of them. And Dean is going to kill him for it if Sam survives, but that's okay, Sam thinks. That's okay, if Dean is alive to be pissed, it's okay. Dean doesn't want to live with some demon possessing him, making his body do things.

Sam remembers Meg, remembers blood on his hands he still dreams about, remembers the feeling of being invaded, used, and he doesn't want that for Dean. _Sorry_, he mouths again, even though Dean can't see it, Dean won't know how sorry Sam really is. But it doesn't matter.

If Dean is alive, it doesn't matter how sorry Sam is or whether Dean accepts his apology.

Sam closes his eyes. The feeling is still there, in the back of his head. It feels like a knot untangling when he focuses on it, a dark pulsing energy waiting to be tapped. But it's been long-deprived. Since Samhain, since the look on Dean's face, Sam has been careful. He's out of practice. He doesn't have the strength to hold out a hand to focus himself. Instead, he zeroes in on that voice that is Dean's but isn't, the voice still talking about how much fun they're going to have in that slick oily tone, and then the voice stops cold. The pacing footsteps halt, then turn toward him.

"What are you-"

Sam pushes, hard, and the voice cuts off with a choking sound. Sam still can't open his eyes. They feel too heavy, stuck together. He sinks deeper into the knotted power in his head. His arms and legs feel dead and warm, useless. Pressed down at every point. He allows that, his physical form is just that, but inside his head, he fights and pushes, he is strength embodied because if he isn't, Dean will kill him against his will, Dean will be a prisoner, Dean will go through what Sam went through, Meg and losing his brother to Hell (though Sam deserves it where Dean was a hero). He fights and he feels freer, sped up, _high_ maybe, and somewhere someone is coughing, someone is hitting the floor, falling to all fours. Lights strobe behind Sam's eyelids, something bursts within him and someone is cursing, he hears his name, _his is the most cursed name in all of hell._

_Dean_ is cursing his name, it's _Dean_, but it's not, and he smells sulfur and blood and he feels nothing but heat and pain and dizzy euphoria he thinks might be what people feel just before they die.

* * *

He has a first row fucking seat to this shit storm, and he's not going to fucking take it sitting down. Sammy's putting up a decent fight, and Dean tries to will Sammy to use some of the moves Dean taught him, hit him with a right, Sammy, distract him! But this demon can hear everything Dean is thinking and uses it against Sam, and Dean hates the fucking satanic son of a bitch even more for that. And then he hears what it tells Sam.

"I got an all access pass. I know everything. How he screamed for you to save him, damned you for failing. Oh, yours is the most cursed name in all of hell, Sammy."

_Shut up._

"But the best is how he hated himself for picking up the blade himself-"

_Shut up!_

"I only wish it'd lasted longer, that self-hatred. Hatred turned into pleasure so fast-"

"Shut up!" And Sam is up, and Dean is cheering, but if they get out of this, he has to remember to put a bandaid on that. He can tell Sam is taking it to heart. He believes this demon. He believes this demon and Dean needs for him to _not_ (too bad it's true, isn't it my boy, Alastair says into his ear).

Sam tries the exorcism, and yeah, that's the first thing Dean would have tried too. Luckily, Sam figures out about the lock way sooner than Dean had, and he cheers when Sam says _come and see_, even though Dean knows Sam, Dean knows Sam doesn't have it in him. God he wishes the kid could do it, but Sam won't kill Dean, Dean will be cursed to have killed Sam with his own hands, even if this demon gets kicked out somehow, he will always have killed his own brother, and he's resigned to that as his due for being everything the demon told Sam he was - a killer, a torturer, sickeningly good at it and happy about that. Except that no matter how resigned he is to living with Sam's death on his hands, the fact remains that Sam will be _dead_ and he wills Sam to not make the Sam choice here, to take one for the team and send Dean and this demon back where they belong.

And the demon hears his thoughts, the demon knows Sam doesn't have the stones to kill Dean, so fuck fuck, fuck this demon for making Dean watch, fuck this demon for eavesdropping and being able to call Sam's bluff-

Except that it isn't a bluff, and Sam's going to go for the exorcism again. When his knife slices through the mark on Dean's arm, something comes undone in Dean, something freeing, something open, and the demon is vulnerable now, its grip on Dean is more tenuous. Dean's feeling through this new open feeling for chinks in the demon's grip when Sam's scream tears through him.

Sam is laying back, limp, bruises are already forming at his jawline. Dean can recognize it from experience. Sam's going to have a hell of a time making a coherent exorcism, but it can be done, Dean's congratulating him as Sam makes an attempt, but-

Dean goes cold as he watches his own hands reach for Sam's face. Dean can sense what is going to happen. _No, _he screams. _No no no no-_

-the terror in Sam's eyes as Dean's hands pry open his dislocated jaw, with a swipe of Dean's pocketknife, blood is everywhere and Sam is choking on it, and Dean's body sits back even as Dean fights and fights and beats against his cage. Sam's tongue drops to the ground next to his head.

_Fuck. Fuck, bastard!_

Sam is limp. Staring at the ceiling, blinking slow. Dean's body leans over him again. "Come on Samantha. Don't give up on me now, kid. I thought you were stronger than that. Seems like your reputation's gotten a little out of hand."

Sam blinks up at Dean then, looks him right in the eye, and Dean can feel the blade against his neck. The demon freezes, Dean can see the desperation in Sam's eyes. He's afraid he can't do it, he's trying to talk himself into it, he's trying to _reach Dean_.

_I'm here, Sammy_, he thinks. _I'm not going anywhere, little brother._ He rails against his cage, he gathers strength from the knife's edge pressed against his throat, he pulls on every bit of rage he's got - at himself for giving in in Hell, for letting himself be vulnerable to this demon, at Sam for letting himself get so caught up in revenge, at Bobby for not watching the kid, at the universe for being just generally terrible, and then-

-he's through.

"Sammy do it, do it. Don't you let me kill you goddammit. Sammy!" and that last word is choked with anguish and desperation and Sam mouths:

_I'm sorry._

"Sam Sam Sam-"

But the demon is back in charge now and it pushes Dean back down with enough force Dean can't even see what's going on anymore. Just Sam mouthing _sorry_ over and over in his memory. Sam can't kill him. Sam can't do it. Fuck. Somehow, he's going to have a nice long fucking talk with this kid, if he has to pull a million favors from the god squad themselves to talk to Sam in the afterlife.

But now he's blinded and he's deafened and he can't see what's happening, what his body is doing, what is happening to Sam, although it seems like the demon wants to keep Sam alive. And Dean would sure as shit like to know why, by the way. If the demon lets Sam live through this, maybe there'll be another chance for Sam to get the upper hand, although without a tongue - _fuck_ his little brother's tongue has just been cut out - it'll be hard to do an exorcism. He'll have to get the balls to kill Dean. God.

He can't help but think about the situation as temporary. _When_ he gets free of the demon, _when_ Sam is able to exorcize him, _when_ Bobby can find them and save them both, _when_ Sam gets medical attention and his freaking _tongue_ grows back - but Sam's _sorry_ means Sam isn't thinking in _whens_. He's thinking in _ifs_. If they get out of this, Sam will feel guilty for almost killing Dean, or for not being able to kill him - Dean isn't sure which will be worse, but he's sure Sam will feel both ways at the same time. A particular skillset Sam is great at.

He pushes outward again. He has to see if Sam's okay. He has to know. The demon isn't paying attention to him anymore, focused on Sam. So Dean can feel himself walking around the room now. Can feel the demon talking now, saying nothing of consequence. Dean is trying to make himself look at Sam, but he can't. The demon laughs as it intentionally keeps Sam just out of Dean's eyeline.

_Get up, Sam. Get up, kid. Please, Sammy, please. You gotta kill this fucker, please please please-_

And then the demon freezes. There's a fire starting up in this vast oppressive space Dean is trapped in. It heats up quick, shoots down Dean's veins like whatever sulfur in them this demon has brought with it is getting gathered up and burnt out, like a fever killing the bug. The demon coughs, spins toward Sam, drops to its knees.

Sam's name comes out of Dean's throat, full of revulsion and promise, but the demon can't make good, because Dean is fighting too now, to get control. Black flows from Dean's mouth and down, heavy smoke, drifting low and sinking into the floor, singing the carpet, and Dean is surrounded by the glow of embers and the stink of sulfur and his voice is still chanting _Sam, Sam_ but it's his voice now, it's all him and it's all desperate and afraid and pleading, _Sam, Sam._

Dean scrambles over to Sam's body. Sam is laying limp on the floor, Dean reaches out to maybe touch him, find a pulse or something, and Sam's back arches, his fingers claw, he's having a fit, and Dean doesn't know what to do.

"Tell me what to do, Sammy," Dean says, weeps almost.

"Leave him be," Bobby says, and Dean whirls around. His knife is out before he registers the door's open and shut already, and it's Bobby talking, and when he realizes he's pulled a knife on Bobby, he's pulled a knife already covered in Sam's blood on Bobby, he throws it away and falls back onto his ass, staring at his hands.

"You just back away from him now, go on Dean."

"Bobby, I didn't - oh fuck."

Bobby has a gun in his hand and he gestures with it. "Go on now, I said."

Dean's brain stalls for half a second and then he says, "Bobby goddammit I was _possessed_. Oh god, all those times I - You gotta help him Bobby."

Bobby lowers the gun, looks Sam over. "I'm keepin' my eye on you anyhow," he says, and pulls out a flask of holy water to flick Dean with. When Dean doesn't sizzle, he looks annoyed. "Well, either you're lying 'bout being possessed or Sam's already exorcized yer ass."

Dean nods, dazed. "Uh, second one."

"Right," Bobby says, unconvinced. He drops his back on the floor and kneels next to Sam a minute, taking vitals and shoving a pillow under his head until the shaking stops. "Okay, come on, son. We gotta get him on the bed."

Dean comes forward on auto-pilot, takes Sam at the shoulders.

"So Sam exorcized ya, huh? Using his..." Bobby waggles his head a little, apparently to signify _psychic mojo_, and heat rushes through Dean, anger.

"What was he supposed to do, Bobby? Let me kill him? The bastard cut out his _tongue_."

"What?" Bobby looks down at Sam's bloody face in horror. "Help me get him on his side." When Dean doesn't move immediately, Bobby says, "So he don't choke on the blood, boy, hurry up."

Dean takes over arranging Sam onto his side while Bobby retrieves the first aid kit.

"Any idea what the demon wanted?"

Dean shakes his head. "No. Bobby, he needs a hospital."

"Let me take a look." Bobby reaches for Sam's face.

"Dont fucking touch him," Dean says.

Bobby freezes, gives him the weirdest look, like maybe Dean's losing it, or still possessed, or-

"Just. His jaw's dislocated. I - I, it. Uh. Didn't want him exorcising it. It was gonna keep me, Bobby." Dean displays his arm, still bleeding from Sam's slice through the locking symbol. "I woulda. Uh."

"Okay. Calm down. Everything's fine now, right?"

"No, everything's not fucking fine, Bobby! Sam's - he couldn't - Sam's-"

"Breathe you idjit." Bobby turns back to Sam, but in deference to Dean's worries, he handles Sam's face gently, prods around his ears, nods. "I can relocate it. Hell, _you_ can relocate it, I know you can. But you're probably right. Kid needs a hospital."

Dean sinks to the floor, nodding. "It cut his fucking tongue out, Bobby," he says again. He's not sure why it's the most important thing in this whole mess. It's really damn fucked up, but Sam's alive, and Dean's alive. Yeah, maybe Sam's agony _is_ the most important thing in this whole mess.

"No you didn't, Dean," Bobby is saying. Dean looks up at him, bewildered.

"What?"

"I said you didn't cut his tongue out."

"I didn't say-"

"You said, I cut his- Damn it boy, don't you pass out on me."

Dean nods again, the room dims around him. But Sam needs him. "Bobby," he slurs. "How'd you get here so fast anyway?"

* * *

"He appears to be unconscious."

"Of course he's unconscious, you idjit."

Bobby looks Castiel, Angel of the Holy Whatsit, up and down. Not exactly instilling a sense of wonder standing there in a trench coat and messy hair. Maybe the wonder came part and parcel with the light show.

"I can wake them both-"

"Sam first. Dean needs the rest. And he don't need to see one more second of this." He gestures to Sam, caught in another fit. His pillow's already soaked through red.

Castiel goes to Sam's bedside, raises a hand over him. Bobby resists the urge to rush into the space between the angel and the son he never had. Sam mighta made mistakes, but this alien creep seemed to have no trouble assigning life and death. Then again, when Bobby'd called, Cas had come, and he might be Sam's only hope now. And there's the added benefit that Sam's seizure stops at a wave of the angel's hand.

To Bobby's surprise and not a little concern, Castiel sits on the edge of Sam's bed.

With a swipe of his hand, Sam's face is cleared of blood. Almost immediately, blood pools again in his cheek and spills over. Red reappears at his nose and drips down into the red of the pillow. Another swipe, and that blood vanishes and does not reappear. Castiel places his hands on either side of Sam's face and Sam's profile is lit up gold. There's a resounding cracking pop; Sam's body jerks, and then lies still.

"I have restored Sam Winchester to the best of my ability." Castiel stands.

"What the hell does that mean?" Bobby asks, rushing to Sam's side to check his vitals.

"He is whole."

Bobby pulls down gently on Sam's jaw, still bruised and swollen but relocated now, and Sam's tongue is there, waiting to be an insufferable know-it-all sometime real soon, and damned if Bobby wasn't going to throw a goddamned party in honor of the boy's ability to bitch.

"There is damage I cannot heal."

"What damage?" Dean's voice comes weak, but it's there, and a moment later, he's dragging himself upright from the other bed in the room, half a second from stumbling over to Sam's bed. Bobby lets him struggle, the damned fool.

"Sam... exerted himself in a way I cannot heal."

Dean stares for a moment. "He exorcized me. He freed me. But he wasn't, he couldn't - I mean he was getting the shit beat out of him by a demon two weeks ago and I watched him _try_ to exorcize it. No deal."

Bobby watches Sam's chest rise and fall. "Sam's real strong when it concerns you."

Castiel nods, serious. "Sam is very strong. Period."

Dean collapses on Sam's bedside. "Well I don't care how strong he is. How do we fix him?"

Castiel narrows his eyes. "There is a thing that will strengthen him physically, enough that he can heal on his own."

"What is it."

"Demon blood."

"What? No."

Castiel looks down at Sam. Sam pale, Sam unmoving. Dean doesn't speak, Dean looks torn. Bobby touches his arm.

"Son, you know this idjit's gonna do this again," Bobby says, trying for gentle.

"What?"

"Yes," Cas agrees. "This behavior is 'classic Sam Winchester.'"

Dean stares.

"Did I say it incorrectly? I saw it on the television. It refers to a behavior which is common to an individual and not common to many other individuals." When Dean doesn't say anything, Cas continues: "Meaning that Sam will use this evil thing to his detriment over and over until he, likely, expires."

"Fuck I get it," Dean explodes. "I get it, shut the hell up. Fine, let's do it."

Bobby frowns. There's no half-measures with Dean, just like there never were with his daddy. Despite what he's just said, Bobby feels some responsibility for reeling Dean in. They've been busting Sam's balls about the blood for so long, and Dean's so desperate - "Should we be a little careful about this, Dean? You remember what the angels said."

Dean shakes his head. "I don't give a fuck what the angels said. He broke himself to save me. I'm not gonna let that happen again. You just said he'd try it again even knowing the consequences. The consequences to _himself_. And you're right. No feathered asshole is gonna tell me what he's doing is evil. _We_ make things evil or good. _We_ do it. And there isn't an evil bone in that kid's body."

"I agree-"

"You stay out of this! You and your feathery brothers- Wait. What?"

"I said that I agree with you. About good and evil. About humankind's inherent neutrality bestowing upon it the ability to turn evil methods to good means." Castiel dips his head, an afterthought: "And about Sam not having an evil bone in his body."

"Uh."

"That is the phrase used to denote a person having little capacity for true evil, is it not?" Cas waits for Dean to nod, then says, "Then indeed none of Sam's bones are evil."

"Oh." Dean raises a brow. Both of them turn to Bobby, who puts his hands up in front of him.

"I ain't the boy's daddy, and this ain't a democracy. You do whatever you need to to wake him up, and then ask him if he wants to keep doing the stuff."

Dean frowns. "Fine." Bobby watches as Dean rifles through Sam's pockets for Sam's phone and wonders how the hell this is going to turn out. They can't fight the angels, and Sam's not supposed to - and would Sam even choose that, after the way Dean's been acting -

Then again, Dean's been a demon this whole time, so-

"Ruby. Get here now."

* * *

She's there in seconds, the demon bitch who took his brother away and turned him to this - but Dean can't bring himself to be upset about it, because deep in his bones is an oily ache, a hollowed-out feeling of having been inhabited, muscle memories he didn't make himself, and he'd still be trapped right now if it weren't for Sam.

Ruby steps into the room and stops short, staring at the floor at the foot of Sam's bed. At the dark stain at the foot of Sam's bed, at the-

"Is that a _tongue?_" she squeaks and Dean takes her by the elbow and directs her to Sam, pale and unmoving on the bed, pale and unmoving and barely breathing and he says, "That's taken care of. Now we need you."

"To do _what_?"

Dean shakes her, fingers digging into her arm. "You know what."

Her demeanor changes in an instant, a sly smile spreads across her lips and her chin dips. She looks up at Dean like she wants to devour him, then looks over at Bobby, winks. A cool nod at Castiel, but then she's at Sam's side, and her smile is gentle, it's softened and her face is almost pretty. She sits on the bed, pulls a dagger from her boot, draws it across her flesh.

Drips it into Sam's mouth - Dean sees it like a vision: red dripping into a wailing infant's mouth. Sam has suffered this before, and everything in Dean wants to stop this. The sulfur smell is overwhelming and he just wants to stop this.

But Sam's breathing deepens and steadies, slows to calm from the panicked rabbit heart of the dying, and Dean's world deepens and steadies, slows to calm from the panicked rabbit heart of the dying.

"That's right baby," Ruby murmurs. She sweeps Sam's hair from his forehead, her touch is light, loving. Dean imagines Sam drunk and broken after Dean's death, how easy it must have been for her to get her claws into him, into Sam who only ever wanted to be accepted and loved.

But Sam wakes up a moment later, and he's coughing on the blood, spitting it out, trying to turn away from her, but he's too weak and she shushes him, pulls his mouth open so he can't help but drink, and Dean has to stop this.

His hand on her shoulder is almost enough.

"He needs this. You know that."

Dean doesn't back off. "Let him wake up and decide for himself."

She doesn't really have a choice. But Sam is waking up, even if he still looks like shit. Dean looks around the room.

"Could you give us a moment?"

Bobby nods, starts to leave the room. Ruby and Cas stay put, and Dean has to shoo them out. Cas, at least, probably didn't understand that he was supposed to get out.

They are alone in the room. Sam blinks up at the ceiling slow, frowning and looking like he's trying to work something out.

Dean sits on his bedside.

"I had to," Sam says immediately, and then puts his hand up to his mouth in surprise.

"Yeah, we fixed that. Cas. Cas fixed that."

Sam nods, thoughtful. "I had to, Dean," he says again, insistent.

"I know." He offers his hand when Sam tries to sit up, grabs a pillow off his bed to prop it behind Sam's back. "Listen Sammy, I wanted to talk about that."

"I couldn't let you stay like that, Dean, I _couldn't_. I know what it feels like."

Dean frowns. Right, Meg. "Settle down, kiddo. I'm not mad."

Sam regards him, frowning.

"Sam. I know what I... did. All these weeks - that wasn't me."

"I know."

"Yeah?" Dean leans closer; Sam shrinks back, just a smidge, pales, if that's possible. "Yeah, real convincing."

"I know you were possessed, Dean." Now he sounds petulant. It's music to Dean's ears.

"Listen, I get it. I had nightmares of Dad with yellow eyes for weeks. You know? It's _normal_. You always did want to be normal, right?" He grins; Sam rolls his eyes. A hand pats at his bloodsoaked shirt absently. "What's on your mind, Sammy?"

"How'm I... I thought that would kill me."

"You called Bobby. Bobby called a taxi Cas-" Sam snorts. "Like that, huh? Yeah, thought of it a few minutes ago. Cas fixed you up, but um. Sammy you... you weren't wakin' up. Cas said there was stuff he couldn't fix."

Sam looks off, devastated. "Ruby."

"Yeah. Ruby. But here's my take. You're gonna do this hero shit again, we all know it. You're gonna try it when you don't have any juice, and next time it _is_ gonna kill you. The way I see it, this is just another tool in our trunk. Right?"

Sam nods, but he doesn't seem convinced. "What happened to 'this makes you a monster?'"

"Okay, first of all, that was the demon-"

"No, actually. You said you'd hunt me. And we hunt..?"

"Monsters, yeah okay fine. Can you just appreciate that I've kinda grown my perspective a little bit here? Also, Cas says he thinks maybe humans have the potential to use good and evil power and change it because of their neutral some shit."

"He said that? The angels approve?"

"No," Cas says, appearing in the room.

"Jesus Christ, Cas-"

"Excuse me. No, the angels will not approve. We will have to work against them concerning this."

"We?" Dean looks at Sam.

"We."

Dean lays his hand on Sam's shoulder. "It's your decision, Sam. If you want to start this up again, if you think it's an acceptable risk, I got your back."

"We're fighting a war," Sam says. "I think one human is an acceptable risk, if it comes to that."

"It won't," Dean says.

"With a nearly 34% probability," Cas agrees.

"Way to cheer a guy up," Ruby says from the doorway. "You ready to feel better, baby?"

"Wonderful," Bobby grouses from behind her. "Get a room."

"Yeah, don't be gross," Dean says, even as Sam is tiredly nodding.

"We still don't know why that demon stayed for so long," Sam says. "It seemed like he was going to keep me alive even after I knew he wasn't you."

Ruby's offering him her arm. Dean gets up; he still doesn't want to be near her. There's something off about her, and he wonders if this is a leftover tingle from the demon who rode him for so long.

"We'll figure that out," Dean assures, stumbles on the way to the table. Bobby catches him.

"What you boys need is rest. And a hideout. And a plan."

"We don't have any of that shit," Dean says. He feels dragged down by every inch of skin suddenly - ah yes, the adrenaline crash.

"Well, I can give you a supply of the good stuff that should hold you for a while," Ruby says.

"Where are you goin'?"

Ruby blinks at him with a smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She tosses her hair, looks at Sam, who's pushing her arm away now self-consciously and wiping at his mouth. She looks back at Dean with a sigh. "I've got stuff to take care of. You wouldn't believe how time-consuming it is to dodge every other demon out there hunting you down for the crime of helping the good guys. I'll drop off a couple of flasks tomorrow morning. Get some sleep," she says to Sam, and kisses his forehead.

Seconds later, she's gone. Dean signals to Bobby, _get me to bed, old man. _

Sam slumps in the bed.

"Buck up, kid," Bobby says, hauling Dean to his feet. "Everyone's alive. We're gonna figure this out."

Dean sways. "Yeah. Everything's gonna be okay, Sammy. I promise."

* * *

"You _idiot_! You almost ruined everything."

"But I-"

"The brothers are united stronger than ever now. This is a disaster."

"I had everything under control. _Your_ guy's the one who screwed up."

"Castiel can't be read in on every hair-brained scheme you people come up with; his mission is to appear sincere to the Winchesters. _You_ got caught giving a mission report and acting like a big man, and used an unaware asset as an alibi. You fucked up. And you will pay for your mistakes. Luckily, we have a contingency for every possibility."


End file.
